E600407B. Napoleon III In Italy, and Other Poems.
New-York Daily Tribune, 7 April 1860, p. 4.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 381–383.
The poetry of Mrs. Browning receives no improvement by seeking its inspiration in the excitement of politics. Indeed a large portion of this volume, which is chiefly devoted to panegyric on Louis Napoleon, differs only from prose—and very bad prose too—in the style of its typography. None of her previous writings make such a profuse expenditure of obscure and inflated rhetoric, or exhibit so little of the earnest tenderness of feeling, and the sweet felicities of phrase, which characterize the nobler productions of her genius. Much must be forgiven to intensity of conviction and emotion, in view of events which take their coloring from the imagination of the poet, rather than from the sagacity of a cool observer; but she has here run riot in the indulgence of artistic lawlessness, in a manner which must tempt the patience of her sincerest admirers, while it furnishes a source of triumph to those who make her racy originality an occasion of disparagement. What earthly or heavenly motive can be found for clothing in the semblance of verse such dreary prosaic platitudes as the following, which need only to be shorn of capital letters to lose every trace of poetical construction?
The thinkers stood aside to let the nation act. Some hated the new-constituted fact of empire, as pride treading on their pride. Some quailed, lest what was poisonous in the past should graft itself in that Druidic bough on this green now. Some cursed, because at last the open heavens to which they had looked in vain for many a golden fall of marvellous rain were closed in brass; and some wept on because a gone thing could not come; and some were silent, doubting all things for that popular conviction—evermore Emperor.
Or these:
He will not swagger nor boast of his country’s meeds, in a tone missuiting a great man most if such should speak of his own; nor will he act, on her side, from motives baser, indeed, than a man of a noble pride can avow for himself at need; never, for lucre, or laurels, or custom, though such should be rife, adapting the smaller morals to measure the larger life. He, though the merchants persuade, and the soldiers are eager for strife, finds not his country in quarrels only to find her in trade—while still he accords her such honor as never to flinch for her sake where men put service upon her, found heavy to undertake and scarcely like to be paid: believing a nation may act unselfishly—shiver a lance (as the least of her sons may, in fact), and not for a cause of finance.
The following is certainly in a higher strain, with a touch of the author’s accustomed vigor:
But Italy, my Italy,
Can it last, this gleam?
Can she live and be strong,
Or is it another dream
Like the rest we have dreamed so long?
And shall it, must it be,
That after the battle-cloud has broken
She will die off again
Like the rain,
Or like a poet’s song
Sung of her, sad at the end
Because her name is Italy—
Die and count no friend?
It is true—may it be spoken,
That she who has lain so still,
With a wound in her breast,
And a flower in her hand,
And a grave-stone under her head,
While every nation at will
Beside her has dared to stand
And flout her with pity and scorn,
Saying, “She is at rest,
She is fair, she is dead.
And, leaving room in her stead
To Us who are later born,
This is certainly best!”
Saying, “Alas, she is fair,
Very fair, but dead.
And so we have room for the race.”
—Can it be true, be true,
That she lives anew?
That she rises up at the shout of her sons,
At the trumpet of France,
And lives anew?—Is it true
That she has not moved in a trance,
As in Forty-eight?
When her eyes were troubled with blood
Till she knew not friend from foe,
Till her hand was caught in a strait
Of her cerement and baffled so
From doing the deed she would;
And her weak foot stumbled across
The grave of a king,
And down she dropt at heavy loss,
And we gloomily covered her face and said,
“We have dreamed the thing;
She is not alive, but dead.”
The rebuke, which Mrs. Browning has felt herself called upon to administer to this country, loses much of its ethical effect from the strange conceits, both of thought and expression, with which so many of its stanzas are disfigured.
A CURSE FOR A NATION.
prologue.
I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said, “Write!
Write a Nation’s curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.”
I faltered, taking up the word:
“Not so, my lord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.
“For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me.”
“Therefore,” the voice said, “shalt thou write
My curse to night.
From the summits of love a curse is driven,
As lightning is from the tops of Heaven.”
“Not so,” I answered, “Evermore
My heart is sore
For my own land’s sins: for little feet
Of children bleeding along the street:
“For parked-up honors that gainsay
The right of way:
For almsgiving through a door that is
Not open enough for two friends to kiss:
“For love of freedom which abates
Beyond the Straits:
For patriot virtue starved to vice on
Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion:
“For an oligarchic Parliament,
And bribes well meant.
What curse to another land assign,
When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?”
“Therefore,” the voice said, “shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Because thou hast strength to see and hate
A foul thing done within thy gate.”
“Not so,” I answered once again.
“To curse, choose men.
For I, a woman, have only known
How the heart melts and the tears run down.”
“Therefore,” the voice said, “shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
Some women weep and curse, I say,
(And no one marvels,) night and day.
“And thou shalt take their part to-night,
Weep and write.
A curse from the depths of womanhood
Is very salt, and bitter, and good.”
So thus I wrote, and mourned indeed,
What all may read.
And thus, as was enjoined on me,
I sent it over the Western Sea.
the curse.
I.
Because ye have broken your own chain
With the strain
Of brave men climbing a Nation’s hight,
Yet thence bear down with brand and thong
On souls of others—for this wrong
This is the curse. Write.
Because yourselves are standing straight
In the state
Of Freedom’s foremost acolyte,
Yet keep calm footing all the time
On writhing bond-slaves—for this crime
This is the curse. Write.
Because ye prosper in God’s name
With a claim
To honor in the Old World’s sight,
Yet do the fiend’s work perfectly
In strangling martyrs—for this lie
This is the curse. Write.
II.
Ye shall watch while kings conspire
Round the people’s smouldering fire,
And, warm, for your part
Shall never dare—O shame!
To utter the thought into flame
Which burns at your heart.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while nations strive
With the bloodhounds, die or survive,
Drop faint from their jaws,
Or throttle them backward to death,
And only under your breath
Shall favor the cause.
This is the curse. Write.
Ye shall watch while strong men draw
The nets of feudal law
To strangle the weak,
And, counting the sin for a sin,
Your soul shall be sadder within
Than the word ye shall speak.
This is the curse. Write.
When good men are praying erect
That Christ may avenge his elect
And deliver the earth,
The prayer in your ears, said low
Shall sound like the tramp of a foe
That’s driving you forth.
This is the curse. Write.
When wise men give you their praise,
They shall pause in the heat of the phrase,
As if carried too far.
When ye boast your own charters kept true,
Ye shall blush; for the thing which ye do
Derides what ye are.
This is the curse. Write.
When fools cast taunts at your gate,
Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate
As ye look o’er the wall,
For your conscience, tradition and name
Explode with a deadlier blame
Than the worst of them all.
This is the curse. Write.
Go, wherever ill-deeds shall be done,
Go, plant your flag in the sun
Beside the ill-doers!
And recoil from clenching the curse
Of God’s witnessing Universe
With a curse of yours.
This is the curse. Write.
We seldom see a more striking specimen than is presented in the above frantic outcries of “the contortions of the Sibyl without her inspiration.”
Reviewed:
Napoleon III in Italy, and Other Poems (EBB), New York: C.S. Francis & Co., 1860.
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